


The Prince of Courtesans

by rby_got



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-09
Updated: 2014-04-09
Packaged: 2018-01-18 19:08:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1439530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rby_got/pseuds/rby_got
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU:  what if things had gone differently for Viserys? I picked a pivotal moment in the character's life and imagined an alternate scenario. Vis is about 14-15 here, Dany like 7.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Prince of Courtesans

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this is literally my first work of fan fiction ever and I haven't written anything in a LONG time, so I apologize if it sucks.
> 
> Backstory: I just started watching GoT and I can't help but wonder what things would be like had things taken a different course for Viserys. On the show Harry Lloyd plays him with a surprising amount of compassion. I always try to approach people with compassion, and I wanted to give Viserys a second chance. I tried to single out a momentous occasion in his life and then work from there. Alternate universe I guess.
> 
> Disclaimer: I'm sure some of this is OOC; I kinda took some established characters and places and just ran with it, but the characters (except for the originals) belong to GRRM.

They called him the Beggar King.

Ten years had passed since the throne had been usurped from his father, King Aerys II. They called his father “The Mad King”, perhaps they were right; Viserys recalled his father setting enemies of the kingdom on fire for entertainment as he looked on from behind the giant columns, both terrified and morbidly curious. When the enemies had slain his brother, he was whisked away with his pregnant mother, who died in childbirth. Once orphaned, he was raised with his sister by one of the few remaining Targaryen loyalists, but he too passed, and Viserys and Daenerys were once again alone, together, bound by shared loss and deathbed promises. 

By this point the kingdoms had long since turned against the Targaryens, and the two siblings traveled from city to city, Viserys first trying to assert his inherent worthiness to the throne—he was a Targaryen, after all—and then, once that had failed, trying to assert he and his sister were at least worthy of food and drink. But Viserys’ resources were dwindling, and his patience for begging had run out a long time ago. As he watched the skin on Dany’s cheeks grow ever tighter, he eyed his most prized possession:  his mother’s crown. 

Between stealing scraps and scavenging for places to stay, Viserys debated the merits of selling it versus keeping it, his last physical reminder of his status. It stayed in his pack all the time; though fifteen, he was still reedy and slender, even more so after this spate of bad luck—the feeling of his ribs pressing against his skin made sleep all the more complicated. He dare not show the crown to anyone, lest they steal it, but sometimes in the dead of night, when he was sure nobody was around, he pulled it out and peeked at it, amazed by its glinting, and envisioned the day it would crown his sister’s head as his Queen consort. As King, he would have his own crown made, adorned with rubies and other gems, and he promised himself it would be as heavy as his head could hold, so everyone could be reminded of his rightful position.

But looking at it hurt, too, in its own way; he remembered his mother and the only time he had been happy, in King’s Landing as a child. Rhaegar was off at war and his mother was not yet pregnant with Daenerys, so they spent much time with each other, something he realized was a rarity for children of any status in Westeros. He felt lucky to have such a privilege and he looked back on the few memories he had with fondness. He promised his mother on her deathbed he would look after Dany and love her, and he certainly looked after her, but at times he found it difficult to love her, knowing she was the one responsible for his mother’s passing. The orphaned Targaryens had not seen much love since the Rebellion, but Vis was sure he loved his mother. It was his duty, then, to bring her and his father honor by returning to the throne.

But how to do it? Under the stars and wrapped in his blanket, Dany curled up snugly beside him, he pulled out the crown and examined it carefully. How much was a Targaryen crown worth? When he bragged of his status, rehearsing speeches from when he would someday be King on street corners, passerby laughed and spit at his feet. Sometimes the sympathetic—more likely those not street-hardened enough—would throw coins at his feet. He’d scramble to catch them with Dany, before the mocking spectators could grab them first. They didn’t know him. They had to be laughing at his name, at his status, out of envy. 

Plus he was working on a new routine with Dany, where she’d darken her silver-platinum hair (she could never hide with the Targaryen hair) with dirt and pretend to cry, waiting for market-goers to give them scraps and money as he watched in the distance, heroically swooping in to rescue her before she was picked up by a madam, pimp, or worse, before they moved to a new spot. He knew every rescue redeemed the Targaryen name, as long as the passerby never realized she was his sister and it was all a masquerade. _The court is a masquerade_ , he remembered hearing at the court. This was practice for the real thing. 

Yet even Vis knew as he and Dany grew more gaunt, silver hair and lilac eyes did little to convince the people of Pentos of his rightful kingship. Every day the siblings grew more interchangeable with the faceless nothing urchins that walked the street. He was trapped in a circle, the shape of the crown. Vis’ hands trembled as they clenched tighter around the golden band. He’d made his choice. 

 

***

 

Being a scout wasn’t easy. The southern sun of Pentos beat down on Will’s shoulders when it wasn’t burning his eyes as he surveyed the vast crowds in the marketplace. Aenne was a demanding master, as she preferred to be called, and business was ebbing. “We need new blood. Bring me new blood,” she instructed him. She called herself the Queen of Courtesans and while the title was mostly aspirational, her standards were exceptionally high. Will had found a few promising girls, but she had turned them all away. He knew that he had to find someone good soon, or he would be turned on the streets as a beggar himself. 

Aenne, ever the savvy businesswoman, took good care of her girls until they stopped bringing in money; then she’d throw them out and forbid they come by again lest her clients think her girls had declined in quality. The positions of scout and protector interchanged even more, but Will had grown up under Aenne’s watch as he learned the ways. His height, commonly a head above the crowd, was another asset.

The people of Pentos milled about. Same faces, different day. Or maybe they were different faces. Will didn’t even care anymore:  they looked all the same. Tanned, dirty, unwashed, ruddy. He was looking for diamonds where there were none.

Then he spotted the gold and silver.

Two skinny, scrawny kids bartering with a shopkeeper in his tent. Will wouldn’t think anything of it, but the smaller one wore a gold crown—counterfeit, he figured—on her long, white-silver hair. They carried themselves differently from the usual crowd milling the marketplaces. The one next to her stood straight up as though they had an iron bar strapped to her back, with her shoulders tossed back in an almost exaggerated fashion—probably to compensate for underdeveloped breasts, Will figured. Maybe they were already in the game. But he’d never seen silver hair like that, and he figured none of Aenne’s “patrons” had either. Rumor was the silver hair had died out with the Targaryens.

Will made eye contact with the shopkeeper, who scowled at him as he walked closer. The man, gruff-looking but dressed in a fine silk blouse that suggested descent from Lys, signaled “no”, though he looked bored by the children. Will had a nasty thought:  the children were traveling entertainers, their hair dyed and adorned with props. They had to be in the game.

As Will approached, the argument grew more heated. The taller one was yelling now, with a peculiar tone in her voice; Will recognized it as the unhinged tone of an arrogant lord frustrated with the services available.

“—but I’m the rightful king!”, Will overheard. The voice was not quite that of a lord but he was not sure it was that of a lady either. 

“And yet you are begging for me to take your crown. What ‘rightful king’ would do that?”, the shopkeeper asked, trying to drop his voice as Will entered the tent. The little one was crying softly as the tall one gripped her arm. They pair was weak and malnourished, like many beggars, but the “rightful king”—what was “he”, an actor practicing his lines?—gripped it with obvious strength:  the girl’s arm was turning purple.

“I’m a Targaryen and you will listen to me! This was my mother’s crown! The crown of royalty! What could be more valuable?”

Will stepped between the seller and the “actor”, picking up the crown from the little one’s head. Solid.

“Its only worth to me will be if I melt it, and you’d have to pay for that,” the tent-master said.

“The _true king—“_ the “actor” spluttered before he looked up at Will in stunned silence. The actor’s eyes turned dark and his facial expression soon fell to deadly seriousness, a visage Will usually saw the five seconds before he threw the angry, entitled—and perhaps delusional—noblemen out of the Queen of Consort’s compound.

“Put that down or I’ll put you to death,” the actor said in a voice with surprising coldness—and complete lack of self-awareness. Perhaps the actor was not acting at all, he was simply mad.

Will stared at the “crown”, turning it around in his hands. It felt like solid gold, like jewelry visiting noblemen gave the girls as gifts. Not light like woven twigs, or hollow as though it had been cast. There was writing along the inside in a language Will could not read, the engraving detailed and fine. Will was young and strapping and he protected prostitutes from fat noblemen. The young, reedy—possibly insane— _boy_ in front of him had no knights and no means to put him to death.

He scratched the gold.

“It’s solid,” he said.

“It should be!”, the boy responded, going from serious to huffing and pompous again. “It’s _Targaryen—_ my mother’s—the best Westeros has ever seen! It’s worth more than the Lannister’s!”

Will rolled his eyes and surveyed the scene. He noticed the boy’s grip still strong on the younger girl’s, blood rolling down her arm. 

“Targaryen, huh?”

“Yes! I’m the _rightful king!_ The _dragon!_ ”

Will scavenged for the numbers in his head. It had never been confirmed the Targaryen line had been extinguished—and if it had, as a prostitute’s son, he’d had little use for the information anyway—but maybe he had just stumbled onto a pair worth their weight in gold.

“The dragons have been dead, boy—”

The boy cut him off. “I am not a boy, I am _Viserys_ ,” he snidely corrected. “Viserys Targaryen, the heir of the throne of Westeros, rightful owner of the Iron Throne, son of King Aerys II and Rhaella—“

“You didn’t answer my question. Oh, and I’ll buy the crown,” Will said offhandedly to the shopkeeper. “Get your hands off the girl,” he commanded. 

At this, the boy’s jaw dropped and his hands fell to his sides, limply. The girl stopped crying and looked up at Will with lilac eyes.

“Where is _your_ gold?” the boy stammered, his voice cracking.

“I’ll take you to it.” Will said.

The tent-keeper, clearly done with the interaction with the mad boy, turned away and faced his other customers and a small crowd of spectators.

“You can’t—you can’t do that.”

“I will give you food, gold for the crown, and maybe a place to stay. Come with me.”

Will turned away and walked back to the compound. He could feel the girl not far behind him. 

_He’ll follow,_ Will thought to himself.

 

***

 

Viserys’ cheeks flushed red hot as he watched the man turn away. _He took her crown,_ he thought to himself, head pulsing. _He took my mother’s crown and my sister is going with him_. Everything in his body burned white hot. He finally took notice of the small crowd beginning to gather, and he bent down to collect his belongings, looking for Dany’s small silver head as his eyes smarted from humiliation. _You will not take that from me._ Vis knew he had to wait to be angry as he spotted his sister about sixty paces in front of him, walking alongside the man with his mother’s crown. _If you lose yourself to anger now, you will lose everything. Endure. Endure. Endure._ He repeated the phrase in his head until the man stopped in front of an imposing building. He heard laughter and the unmistakable sound of fucking. 

_By the gods, he’s taken my seven year old sister to a whore house._ He paused. _A nice whorehouse_ , he admitted to himself _. But a whorehouse all the same._

Vis scrambled for his dagger as he rushed to catch up to them. He’d been trying so hard not to feel anything but he felt his eyes stinging as he gasped for air. He came up behind Dany and held a dagger to her throat—

“Oh. Nice to see you, Varos.”

What was it about this man that was so infuriating?

“Vis—you’re taking my sister to a whorehouse—I’m letting my—give me my sister and my crown back!”, Vis spat.

The big man sighed and Vis knew he was losing the fight. _By the gods by the gods by the gods by the gods_ —even his thoughts felt breathless now.

“You can come too—“

This broke him.

“I am the _dragon_ , not a whore!”, Vis screeched, not caring who heard.

“No, you have to—nevermind, come in,” the tall man said.

At this point a gaggle of whores had crowded around the entrance, either clad in sheer silks held up with gold clasps or completely nude. They reached out and stroked Dany’s hair. All Viserys could feel was rage. He couldn’t let himself feel humiliated now. 

The presence of the whores added an extra sting. He had once saved up enough for one, knowing he was on the cusp of manhood. _The dragon deserves_ it, he remembered thinking as he snuck off. Right now he barely remembered the experience—the women were all stunningly beautiful even with their painted faces, hair in every shade cascading down their breasts and backs, alternately giggling and looking on him with the same sad pity the first whore had. 

As they ventured inside, the sounds of people fucking penetrated his numbness. The building was a labyrinth, different rooms alternately shielded by half-doors or brocade fabrics. In its ostentation it reminded Vis of home, and suddenly he felt very much like a small boy, like he was answering to his mother had she not died, as though she were to punish him for his failures, all of them, but especially this one…

“Sit,” the man commanded. They were in a new room, this one with finely painted tiles and rich velvet pillows piled high. Vis dropped to the floor obediently as he saw Dany jump up on a mountain of cushions. _Why was she not scared? Why didn’t she understand?_

Vis wasn’t angry anymore. He wasn’t much of anything. He looked down at the floor and started to trace little circles with his finger. The floor was dusty and each circle shook up a new, tiny storm cloud cloud of dust.

He heard the big man get up and sit on the floor, making a triangle between him and Dany. _Big oaf,_ Viserys thought vengefully. _Big, stupid oaf, I’ll_ —

“Aenne will be here in just a minute,” he said.

“Who’s Aenne?” piped up Dany, for the first time.

“I thought you were dumb, young girl!”

Dany giggled shyly as Vis looked up, actively trying to look as intimidating as possible. Vis could tell the big oaf was watching his words.

“Aenne is—like my mother,” he said after some deliberation. “She’s everyone’s mother.”

“The naked women too? That’s a lot of daughters!”

“Yes, it is a lot of daughters.”

“What is it like having whores for sisters?” Viserys remarked drily.

The man was about to reply when a large-breasted woman wearing only jewels, hair ornaments, and slippers brought three cups of tea and a plate of tiny cakes on a tray. “She’s on her way,” the whore said.

“You can eat,” the man gestured. Dany got up and grabbed a teacup and cake right away. Viserys wanted to stop her but he knew at this point she was probably afraid of him.

“Go on,” he said. “You look hungry.” 

“I’m not moving until I get my crown back,” he said petulantly. 

The big man laughed and shook his head as a woman’s feet—this time protected by draping silk the color of the sea—passed by, Vis still focused on the floor.

“The guest of honor has arrived!” the man said, a slight mocking tone in his voice.

 

***

 

“These are the ones?” Aenne asked curtly, surveying the two children. And really, these were two children, no matter how much the older one pretended to be otherwise. They were skinny—and dirty, she wondered who would clean the floors after they got up. But one thing was true:  they were silver-haired, and the young girl was of great beauty, even with parched lips and bones showing through her skin.

“Mhm.”

“Ah.” Aenne tried not to sound pleased. She wasn’t one for rescues but she could make an exception. The hair was exotic, and once the younger one was fed she could be educated. Maybe even become one of Aenne’s best. She wasn’t sure what to do with the older boy—he was androgynous, with high cheekbones, smooth tanned skin, and silver-white hair that fell to his shoulders. He could attract clients, she supposed. His frame was too light and slender to be of much use as a guard. And that scowl—well, that’s why they do it from behind, she figured.

“Eat,” she commanded, trying to sound gentle. The boy didn’t move. He was pouting like a child that hadn’t got his way. Aenne realized that’s probably what he was. At some point, all men could be, in the end.

“Poison takes planning,” she said. 

The boy snorted as the girl took another cake.

Silence. Aenne swirled the cake around in the tea. Finally, after some time:

“Where’s my crown?” 

He’d picked himself up off the floor and readjusted his posture. He puffed his chest out like a peacock. There wasn’t much there. He looked like a pompous grasshopper.

“Will has it,” Aenne replied.

“Is that the oaf—“

“He’s not an oaf. He’s a guard, and a scout, and I think he may have just brought me a lot of gold.”

The boy’s expression changed, reluctantly interested.

“How? And—and why should you get the gold?”

“You and your sister will be an investment.”

The silver boy looked like he wanted to fight it but his face fell as he slowly realized what she meant.

“I’m royalty—not a slave—you can’t _enslave_ a dragon, and you can’t _whore out_ my sister.” He’d been rehearsing this argument since he arrived. Maybe longer.

Aenne said in her most diplomatic tone, “You’ll not be a slave. I will feed you, house you, and teach you. You will earn your keep around here, and maybe someday you will earn your crown. Maybe even gold enough for your kingdom.” She tried to make eye contact with him. She had his attention. “What’s your name?”

“Viserys Targaryen, the heir—“

“So the rumors are true?”

The boy thought a moment. “That I am king? Yes.”

Aenne suppressed laughter. “I thought the Targaryens were all dead. They are not. But they are mostly dead, and you are an orphan king without a throne.” The boy opened his mouth. He looked like he’d been slapped in the face. “You can be a king in your head. You will have plenty of company—all of the men that visit think they are. But while I am giving a bed to you, I am the Queen of Courtesans.” She paused. “You can have your rebellions and your wars and your bloodshed, but when the noblemen and lords come to Pentos, they come to me and my women. That’s the true power. I will be here when kingdoms fall. My girls will be here when kingdoms fall. It may not seem like it now, Viserys, but I am giving you an enormous gift, if you play your cards right.” 

Taking a breath, she added, “And what young boy wouldn’t want to grow up in a whorehouse?”

 

***


End file.
